Top 30 Newspaper Web Sites See a Rise in Uniques

Newspapers are having an abysmal start to 2009 with advertising revenue plunging in double digits. But on the readership side — online, anyway — it’s a different story. For the month of January, 25 of the top 30 newspaper Web sites experienced a rise in unique visitors, according to the latest report from Nielsen Online.

The New York Daily News grew the most, with a 150% increase in monthly uniques to 7.7 million compared to the same month a year ago. Next comes the Orlando Sentinel, which was up 102% to 2 million uniques year-over-year.

Politico’s monthly uniques grew 35% year-over-year to 3.2 million.

Nielsen reported that USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday, the Baltimore Sun, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer were down for the month compared to January 2008.

Below is the latest list of top 30 newspaper Web sites based on U.S. panels and ranked by unique users for January. The percent change compares January 2009 with January 2008. Also keep in mind there are several reasons why traffic fluctuates, including news events (Nielsen Online and E&P are owned by the same company.)